Menu

Family Guy S10E14

Be Careful What You Fish For

This week’s episode of “Family Guy” was for fans who find Ricky Gervais annoying. Rather than go for the kind of sharp humor that’s made him a favorite — though not by all — of the Golden Globes in recent years, Gervais instead sticks with aquatic puns, laughing more at his own fishy jokes than anyone else save Peter. Our main storyline starts with an ocean liner shipping Mercedes cars sinking off the coast of Rhode Island, which gives Peter the idea to go fish for one. But when he attempts to do so, he just ends up catching a talking dolphin named Billy Finn, who is voiced by Ricky Gervais.

Peter, Quagmire, and Joe go out on a boat in hopes of retrieving a free sunken Mercedes from a recent shipping accident, but instead accidentally snare Billy Finn, the talking dolphin. When Billy dives to retrieve a Mercedes hood ornament for Peter, it’s only natural to assume the three guys would talk about how they’re either hallucinating or witnesses the miracle of a talking dolphin, but instead Family Guy sidesteps the obvious and completely ignores that potential. Billy is a talking dolphin, he can show up at the Griffins’ and become a terrible houseguest, sitting around because his wife kicked him out of the ocean.

Talking animals are nothing new on Seth MacFarlane shows (Brian here, Klaus in “American Dad,” the bear in “The Cleveland Show”), but there’s something about seeing a dolphin, voiced by Gervais, standing at the Griffins’ front door that sort of makes you go “huh?” which then leads you to ignore the rest of the scene because you’re thinking to yourself, “Do all animals on this show talk? No, I’ve seen some that don’t. Can dolphins survive on land? I guess they breathe through blowholes, so… well, but it seems like they would dry up. Hmm. Wait, what’s going on in this scene?”